WINSTON-SALEM – It’s theatre awards
season, and the University of North
Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) is
seeing its alumni and friends recognized
in record numbers!

UNCSA School of Music alumnus Phillip
Boykin (‘90) has received a
Theatre World Award for
Outstanding Broadway Debut for his
portrayal of Crown in The Gershwins’
Porgy and Bess. The 68th annual
Theatre World Awards were held June 5 at
the Belasco Theatre in New York City.

Drama alumnus Wesley Taylor
('08) was a presenter.

A native of Greenville, S.C., Boykin
is also nominated for a Tony Award
for Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical.

The Tony Awards will be broadcast at 8
p.m. Sunday, June 10, on CBS.

Paul Tazewell
(’86), who has family in the Triad, is
another UNCSA alumnus who is
up for a Tony Award. A School of
Design and Production alumnus, Tazewell
was nominated for Best Costume Design of
a Play for A Streetcar Named Desire.

And UNCSA Board of Visitors member
William Ivey Longis up fora Tony for Best Costume Design
of a Play for his work on Don’t Dress
for Dinner.

Phillip Boykin

Other UNCSA connections to Sunday’s Tony Awards:

·
Other Desert Cities,
directed by School of Drama alumnus Joe Mantello
(’84), is up for five Tony Awards, including Best Play
and Best Scenic Design of a Play (longtime School of
Design and Production guest artist John Lee Beatty
received that nomination).

·
School of Design and Production alumna Anne S. Kohn
('10) is associate director of administration for the
Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., which
will receive the 2012 Regional Theatre Tony Award. Kohn
received her master's degree in Performing Arts
Management.

·
School of Drama alumnus Paul Whitty ('02) plays
Billy (Guitar, Ukulele, Cajon, Snare Drum) in Once,
which is nominated for 11 Tony Awards, including
Best Musical, Best Orchestrations and Best Sound Design.

·
Scott A. Lehrer,
who was sound designer for UNCSA’s spring 2011
all-school musical, Oklahoma!, is nominated for
Best Sound Design of a Play for Arthur Miller’s Death
of a Salesman.

The 2012 Drama Desk Awards, which are
often viewed as Tony Award predictors, were announced
June 3 in Manhattan.

UNCSA School of Drama alumnus Paul Whitty (see
above) is in the cast of Once, which won the 2012
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical.

Nominated for 2012 Drama Desk Awards were School of
Drama alumni Will Rogers (‘04) and Anna Camp
(‘04). Rogers was nominated for Outstanding Featured
Actor in a Play for his performance in Classic Stage
Company’s Unnatural Acts. Camp was nominated for
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her Off
Broadway/Second Stage performance in All My People.

School of Music alumnus Phillip Boykin (see
above) was also nominated for a 2012 Drama Desk Award,
for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical.

Other UNCSA connections to the Drama Desk Awards include
UNCSA Board of Visitors member William Ivey Long
(see above) who was nominated for Outstanding Costume
Design for Lucky Guy, and Alan Menken,
UNCSA’s 2011 commencement speaker and honorary doctorate
recipient, who won in the Outstanding Music category for
Newsies The Musical.

The 2012 Lucille Lortel Awards, which were
announced last month in New York City, also had several
UNCSA connections.

Drama alumnus J.T. Rogers saw his play, Blood
and Gifts, nominated for Outstanding Play, while
Drama alumnus John Langs saw his production,
The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, nominated for
Outstanding Musical. The show was directed by Langswith story by Langs, Joy Gregory and Gunnar Madsen.

William Ivey Long
(see above) was also nominated for a Lucille Lortel
Award, for Outstanding Costume Design for The School
for Lies.

The Lucille Lortel Awards are presented by the
Off-Broadway League for Outstanding Achievement
Off-Broadway.

J.T. Rogers’Blood and Gifts (see above)also received
a nomination for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play from
the Outer Critics Circle Awards, which
also were presented last month. (Phillip Boykin and
William Ivey Long also received Outer Critics Circle
nominations.)

In April, Rogers was announced as a recipient of
the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, which is
awarded to men and women who have already demonstrated
exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or
exceptional creative ability in the arts. There are only
about 220 Fellowships awarded each year from up to 4,000
applicants.

Rogers received an honorary doctorate from UNCSA in
2009.

And also in April, Design and Production alumnus
Chris Blaine received a Helen Hayes Award
for Outstanding Sound Design, Resident Production, for
his sound design of A Bright New Boise at
Washington, D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. The
Helen Hayes Awards recognize artistic achievement on
Washington’s stages.

As America’s first state-supported arts school, the
University of North Carolina School of the Arts is a
unique stand-alone public university of arts
conservatories. With a high school component, UNCSA is a
degree-granting institution that trains young people of
talent in music, dance, drama, filmmaking, and design
and production. Established by the N.C. General Assembly
in 1963, the School of the Arts opened in Winston-Salem
(“The City of Arts and Innovation”) in 1965 and became
part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972.
For more information, visit
www.uncsa.edu.